Home Once More

We enjoyed a great 3 day trip from Siloam Springs to home on mostly non-interstate roads - also known as scenic highways. We spent nights in Vicksburg, Mississippu and Tallahassee, Florida. We enjoyed a seafood buffet at the Aneristar Casino in Vicksburg and a short trip downtown in Tallahassee to see the state capitol. We made record time in cleaning out the motorhome and plan on hitting the sack early. Our travels included US highways 65, 49 and 19. We had previously taken 191 thru Utah, 160 thru Colorado, 64 thru New Mexico and 412 thru Oklahoma. It was really nice to get off the beaten interstate path. This is our last post for this trip - we'll be on the road again May 12 when we go to Richmond VA for the birth of our next grand-daughter. Til then Happy Trails to You.

Siloam Springs AR

Arrived in Siloam Springs about 2:30 today after a very windy 2 day drive accross Olahoma. We're camped at Natural Falls State Park in Oklahoma, it's very nice and wooded here. We really enjoyed our 4 days here with Joe, Maria and the kids. We went to 1 of Daniel's soccer games - 34F and rainy - not fun even though Daniel played a great game. What was fun was our campfire program last night with hamburgers and smores. Tonight we're in Vicksburg MS, tomorrow we'll be in Tallahassee then we'll be home on Sunday, finally.

Walsenburg CO

Drove across the Colorado Rockies, scenery beautiful. no snow on the road,  just on the mountain tops. We're at Lathrop State Park in Walsenburg. The drive was quite something with 3 mountain passes of 7783, 10857 and 7783 feet. At 10857 ft the country was snowbound except for the road. Thank goodness that was clear. The park is nice but Pat's knee doesn't feel like doing any hiking. Jill took the high altitudes in stride, I think she is over her car sickness.

Woodward OK

We are in Woodward OK after a windy drive thru Oklahoma. we're ok. We stayed in Boiling Springs State Park for 2 nights and enjoyed walking through the park on our day off. The spings are not really boiling, but water is bubbling up several places as if it were.  The ranger said they had a hard winter, so the park is need of some TLC, but is otherwise a very nice park.

Moab

Moab - fruit trees and dogwood are in blossom, but snow and the temperature are falling. Looks like we're stuck here for another day. We just checked the weather forecast and snow will be falling in Colorado for the next day. So we'll leave here Friday and just spend one cold night in Colorado, that's no different than here the last couple of days. Next stops:Walsenburg, CO; Woodward, OK then Siloam Springs, AR to visit the kids.

PS: Thursday - Karl went with Mearl to pick up a customer in Grand Junction,   stopped at Centennial RV to pick up some items for the RV. Went to dinner with Dee's family to celebrate their 22nd wedding anniversary. They don't look a day older than they did when they left home.....or was that the grandkids we were looking at tonight. Tomorrow is our big start headin for home day. Got 400 miles to drive per day til we get back home.

Grand Staircase, Boulder Mountain And Capitol Reef

"Camped" at Capitol Reef Campground last night after driving from Bryce Canyon. That is a gorgeous drive through the Grand Staircase National Monument, Escalante and over the 9600 ft Boulder Mountain. We saw a herd of deer just as we started up the mountain. Our rig did great up and down the 8 and 10% grades.

The Capitol Reef campground is very nice, even though they call it dry camping it has bathrooms with running water, water faucets outside the restrooms and a dump station. Lots of tents in the campground and very few big rigs. The cost to camp is $5 for us golden age people. Even though the park is noted more for it's hikes than drive-thru, even the drive-thru has fantastic scenery. It has thriving fruit orchards and a herd of deer was in the pasture this morning. It's one-room schoolhouse functioned from about 1900 until 1941, when it was discontinued for lack of students. It stands in its original location, just below rock studded cliffs, a precarious place for a school. Petroglyphs also show that native americans once used the beautiful valley where water is abundant (Freemont River) and wildlife probably flourished.

The drive from Capitol Reef to Moab today was kinda pretty, a very unique landscape. Lots of painted sandstone, everything from white to red stripped hills and cliffs. Lot's of formations that looked like someone had built large sand castles on the beach some time ago.

We are now at our daughter's place in Moab. We enjoyed visiting with her, her husband and their 3 child this afternoon, even though their children are not really children any more. All of them very busy in work and schoool. We'll probably be here for 3 to 5 days before we make a speedy drive back to Tampa Bay.

Another Day At Bryce Canyon

Had to run into Panguitch to pick up new vent cover from NAPA. It had wrong hiunge on it so wound up screwing it on. Hopefully it'll stay on long enough to get home.

This afternoon we enjoyed a guided ATV tour through the forest and onto the rim of Bryce canyon. Beautiful country and the road was pretty smooth. Saw about 9 antelope laying down in the field but deleted their pictures before I realized what they were. I saw them and Pat can testify to it, that's good enough for me. It's 58F and sunny and feels pretty good as long as the wind's not blowing.

Bryce Canyon

Drove from Zion Canyon to Bryce Canyon today, about a 2 hour drive through some gorgeous country. Before checking into Ruby's RV Park we drove up through Bryce. As always it was beautiful, beyond words. Just a little bit of snow left over from earlier this week. It was kinda chilly and I guess we can thank the weather gods for keeping the crowds down. We saw one tour bus and the parking lots were only 1/4 full. Pat's knee is still suffering and she didn't get out of the RV at the  view points. But she did take the dog for a walk once we made camp. We signed up for 2 nights here then we'll go to Captirol Reef National Park for a night or two before heading for Moab then home.

Zion National Park Day Off

Busy day in Zion. Washed clothes, hung TV and found out we need new top vent. Had to make 2 trips to the hardware store to hang TV. Tried out our new George Foreman Grill for our steak tonight, not too bad for first try. Steak was still frozen when it was put on the grill so it required twice as much time to cook.

Tomorrow we'll move to Bryce Canyon.

Lake Powell To Zion Canyon

We've had a great time the last few days.  We took a wonderful boat ride througCh the Navajo and Antelope Canyons Friday. We dry camped at Lake Powell the last couple of days we were there then drove to Springdale Utah through Zion Canyon (including the mile long tunnel). We dry camped at Vicki's place in Springdale for a couple of days and moved to full-hookups at Zion Canyon Campground and RV Park about 1/2 mi outside the park. There's great shuttle service here so we're all set for the next couple of days. We had a good time with Karl's family, Bryce and LaRee and Doyle and Vicki. We went to St George with Doyle and Vicki Sunday morning to see Bryce's new home then Bryce and LaRee brought us back to Springdale. Sunday afternoon Danny brought his family, Renee, Rachel and Lisa, down from Cedar City and we had a good visit with them. It rained all after noon yesterday, Monday, we even got some snow on the   hill sides not too far off the valley floor. e

We celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary yesterday with a quiet dinner and movie. Dinner at the Majestic Lodge and The Croods and The Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz at the IMAX theater in 3D at the Zion Canyon Lodge.   Jerry had a special Anniversary Ring FedExed here at Zion.  He designed and made this one of a kind ring just us.  Talent talent talent.  Thank You!!!

Thanks to everyone for your special greetings to us on this special day.  We love you all.

Today we're off to explore Zion. We've decided to go to Bryce Canyon on Thursday because it's snowing up there today and tomorrow and will start warming up on Thursday.

Lake Powell Homemaking

A lovely day at Lake Powell - a day of organization and accomplishment. We spent the morning getting inside and outside organized. In the afternoon we washed all the stuff we'd dirtied in the last 8 days on the road. We then went to the resort and made reservations for the 1 pm boat ride. Then went to walmart and got all the stuff to finish making our Lazy Daze our home. Then we came back to the Lake Powell Campground and setup camp in the dry camping area instead of the full hookup site we stayed at last night, Cost difference: $13 vs $48. That'll buy a couple fillups of our propane tank. Saturday we go to Zion Canyon where we'll meet up with Doyle and Bryce, Karl's brothers.

Las Cruces to Lake Powell

Once we got off I-10 at Lordsburg NM we started getting some excitement, On US-70 we drove by green fields in Safford & Thatcher AZ. Then it was Deja Vu all over again as we stopped at Taco Bell in Globe. When we lived in Tucson we had a 5th Wheel in Sholo and drove up every weekend, on the way we always stopped at Globe's Taco Bell for Nachos Grande to devour on the way. Between Globe and Mesa AZ we got into some good hill country where we saw 3 large open pit copper mines. One of which Pat used to work at as accountant. Things got really exciting in Mesa as we picked up our new 2000 30' Lazy Daze Motorhome, and started making the big move. Pat's niece, Kathy, her husband Ron and son Richie with his wife Michelle, all pitched in to make the task light - but we'll be arranging things for quite a while. We enjoyed a great Mexican meal when the work was complete. It didn't take us long to get used to the new bed, no more climbing up stairs to get in & no more climbing over each other to get out. The new hone is great, with a generator and solar panel we can be very self sufficient when we want to be. It drove very nice going up the mountain to Flagstaff and beyond. We didn't find out until well past Flagstaff that Hwy 89 was closed to Page and we had a lenghtly detour, about 60 miles. Since we didn't know our rig very well we were kinda anxious whether we had enough gas to make it. If I'd known about the detour I'd have filled up in Flagstaff, but alas, we made it with bells on. Now we're all settled at Lake Powell, we have full hookups and a great view of the Lake. We got here after the office closed so we have to go down and register in the morning. They open at 8am, but I'm not sure what time zone they're in. As we came into the campground there was a sign saying we were entering Arizona, I assume that we were in Utah which is a different tine zone -  just which side of the border is the office in?

Big Bend National Park and Las Cruces NM

We're in Las Cruces NM tonight after visiting Big Bend National Park last night. Big Bend is more or less the same landscape as the rest of Texas, sagebrush and cactus, with a little tall grass and trees along the Rio Grande banks. Pat dipped her finger in the Rio Grande but neither of us ventured any further. The Park is quite a ways out of the way to anywhere so the only reason to go is to say we've been to all the National Parks. Not sure we  can say that yet but we come very close. We had a great Mexican dinner at our favorite Mexican Restaurant, La Posta, and stepped inside a bit of history at the courthouse where Billy the Kid was tried and sentenced to die, today it's a gift shop.